Afghan captain scored a century in the humid heat of Chennai, ended 9 years of drought

The third and last ODI between India and Afghanistan is being played at Chepauk Stadium, Chennai. In this match, Afghan team captain Hashmatullah Shahidi has scored a century. In front of the humid heat and dangerous bowling attack of Chennai, Shahidi showed amazing fight and completed the first century of his ODI international career. He is the third Afghan captain after Asghar Afghan and Navroz Mangal to score a century in ODIs.

Asghar Afghan played an inning of 164 runs against Ireland in Sharjah in 2017. Since then no Afghanistan captain had been able to score an ODI century. Shahidi ended this drought by placing Washington Sundar’s ball in the gap between backward point and short third in the 44th over of Afghanistan’s innings in Chepauk. He faced 128 balls to reach this milestone.

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Afghanistan got out of crisis

Afghanistan had a bad start after winning the toss and coming to bat first. Prasidh Krishna, while bowling sharp, gave 4 blows to the Afghan team in the power play itself. Shahidi, along with Azmatullah Omarzai, got his team out of trouble. There was a partnership of 105 runs between the two. Omarzai was out after playing an aggressive innings of 50 runs in 56 balls. After his departure, Shahidi got the support of experienced all-rounder Mohammad Nabi.

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Shahidi could have missed a century

Shahidi and Nabi took Afghanistan close to 200 in 37 overs. The team seemed to be moving towards a respectable score but as soon as Nabi was out, its innings suddenly fell apart. Afghanistan lost 3 wickets including Nabi in scoring 8 runs. It seemed that Shahidi would be left standing at one end and would miss completing the century.

Number-11 Ziaur Rahman supported him well, due to which he was successful in reaching the milestone. However, after completing his century, Shahidi lost his wicket while trying to hit a big shot and Afghanistan’s innings was reduced to 218 in 44.2 overs. His wicket was taken by Prasidh Krishna and completed his 5 wicket haul. Gurnoor Brar, Prince Yadav and Harsh Dubey got 1 success each. Indian team has won this series. He has to score 219 runs to clean sweep.